


Boys Will Be Boys

by sorryinadvance



Series: We're More Than A Band [5]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dancing in the Rain, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Headcanon, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, One Shot, Phantoms get a dog, Post-Canon, Rain, Reggie Has ADHD (Julie and The Phantoms), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, reggie has a theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:27:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26787448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorryinadvance/pseuds/sorryinadvance
Summary: Julie snapped her head to look at him. “How is it my fault you idiots thought running outside in that massive storm was a good idea?”Luke moved to slide on top of the back of the couch and dropped on top of Reggie and Julie, successfully knocking the air out of both of them. Elvis, bless his heart, was still curled up at her feet and didn’t even react to Luke’s movements.“Oh, that’s easy. You left us unsupervised.”Julie couldn’t even formulate a response to that. Instead, she rolled her eyes at the cheeky grin on Luke’s face.Idiots, she thought to herself, I’m surrounded by idiots.
Series: We're More Than A Band [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931422
Comments: 21
Kudos: 415





	Boys Will Be Boys

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this when I was taking my dog a bath and thought it would be cute. It didn't end up how I imagined, but that's okay. It's a short and sweet litte ramble. I just wanted to get the idea out of my head! I hope you guys like it. Here's more Elvis and the guys like I promised! There are definitely more of these oneshots to come. I have LOTS of ideas that I need to find the motivation to write. So stay tuned and enjoy!

“This is a terrible idea,” Alex said once again.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a great idea,” Luke brushed off the boy’s words.

They were sitting in the studio with Elvis, the white puppy Reggie had found a few weeks ago, as they waited for their bassist to come back from the house. Luke was scratching behind the dog’s ears as it lay curled up on his lap. Alex was slumped in the armchair, twirling one of his drumsticks between his fingers.

Outside, it was pouring rain. The thunder boomed so loudly the windows in the studio shook. The dark clouds outside cast an eerie glow in the normally brightly lit studio. The storm brought a cold breeze with it, making the studio feel like an ice box.

As they waited, Luke had been counting the seconds between each sound of thunder and the next lightning strike. It was an old trick his father had taught him when he was a scrawny kid who would run to his parents’ room to bury himself between them on the bed every time it stormed outside. His father had explained that it was a way people used to measure out how far the storm was. Each second between the thunder and lighting was supposedly equivalent to how many miles away the storm was. Although 1995 Luke had outgrown his fear of thunderstorms, it was an old habit he couldn’t shake. Now, given his new ghostly status, it was more of a memory of a time of his life before music and fighting with his parents. It was a happy memory that he wasn’t ready to let go of.

He counted three seconds between the thunder and lightning.

“Three miles,” he whispered to himself.

Alex glanced over at him curiously but stayed quiet.

A white flash and popping noise alerted the two ghosts to their friend’s return. Elvis started and almost rolled off Luke’s lap with a yelp.

Reggie stood in front of them with an arm full of towels and an old portable heater.

“Where did you find that?” Alex nodded towards the heater.

“Oh, Ray keeps it up in the attic. I remember I saw it the other day when we were helping Julie look for that old record player,” Reggie explained, tossing the towels onto the coffee table. He moved to the nearest wall and plugged the heater in.

The three ghosts groaned when the brisk air in the studio melted into warmth. Now that they could materialize again, they had started being able to notice temperature again. They especially enjoyed sitting outside with Julie on days when they had the house to themselves and soak up the sun. Unfortunately, that also meant they could experience the cold again, and they _hated_ it. The cold reminded them too much of the dark room they had been trapped in for twenty-five years.

Elvis immediately jumped off Luke’s lap and curled up on the rug in front of the heater.

“Ouch, Elvis. You really were just using me, huh?” Luke said in a wounded tone. The puppy opened his eyes to glance at the brown-haired boy and then shut them once again.

“Little runt,” Luke laughed. Alex and Reggie shook their heads at the exchange.

“Are we doing this or not?” Reggie raised an eyebrow at his friends.

“Why are we even doing this?” Alex asked.

“Because it’s going to be fun, Alex. You do know what fun is, right?” Luke teased the blonde, who glared in response.

Luke stood up and slipped off his shoes. Reggie knelt down and began undoing the buckles of his boots. With a sigh, Alex kicked off his shoes and tossed his hat on the table. They all tugged off their shirts and sweaters.

Leaving their jeans on, the three ghosts poofed out of the studio and onto the back patio of the Molina’s house. They stared out at the rain coming down in sheets now. It was so heavy they could hardly see the backyard.

“I still think this is a really bad idea,” Alex told them.

Luke and Reggie leaned their heads back to look at each other over Alex’s shoulders and grinned. Together, they shoved Alex out from under the cover of the patio and into the rain.

Alex let out a shriek as the cold rain hit him. His jeans were immediately soaked and sticking to his legs. His blonde hair was plastered against his skull and poked him in the eyes.

He spun around to see Luke and Reggie laughing their butts off at his reaction.

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you come out here? It feels _fucking fantastic_ ,” he growled out through clenched teeth.

Both boys eyes widened. Before they could move out of range, Alex grabbed their arms and tugged them into the rain with him. 

Luke yelled out a string of curses as the cold rain hit him. Reggie flinched at the sudden temperature change before he grinned and sprinted across the grass.

Laughing, Luke and Alex watched the boy run in the rain. Reggie looked like a baby bird trying to learn how to fly as he enthusiastically flapped his arms around.

Alex suddenly shoved Luke hard enough for the boy to stumble.

“What the hell—?” Luke shouted before he stopped short to see Alex smirking at him.

“Really? That’s how you wanna play?” Luke said in a low voice.

Alex’s smirk grew into a full-blown grin. In the blink of an eye, Alex took off across the yard towards Reggie. Luke immediately sprinted after the blonde.

The three ghosts didn’t realize how much time they had spent chasing each other and wrestling in the rain until they heard Julie’s voice.

“What in the world are you guys doing?” Julie shouted.

Luke had been laying on the grass, too tired to get up after Reggie had tripped him, and instantly jumped to his feet at the sound of her voice. Alex who had been running away from Reggie stopped when he noticed Julie standing under the back patio with her hands on her hips. Unfortunately for Reggie, he wasn’t expecting the blonde to stop so suddenly and ended up crashing into his back. The collision sent both boys falling to the ground.

Julie began making her way towards them under her tie-dye umbrella. Her rain boots sloshed in the wet grass as she stomped across the yard.

“Are you guys okay?” Julie asked the two boys on the ground.

“Just peachy,” Alex groaned. Reggie just grunted in response.

Sighing, Luke held out his hands to help his friends off the ground.

Now that they were all upright, Julie could see mud and wet grass caked onto their bare skin. Alex’s hair was full of grass from the fall. The jeans the three of them wore were completely soaked. Luke’s jeans were hanging dangerously low on his hips since the boy refused to wear a belt and preferred to keep his pants up with a shoelace. _It’s all about the aesthetic,_ the idiot had told her one day after she asked about it.

“I didn’t know ghosts could get wet,” Julie said dryly.

Reggie grinned. “Neither did we! We wanted to see if we could or not, so here we are!”

She blinked at the boy’s words.

“So…instead of using the shower in the garage. You decided to test it out in the freezing rain?”

Alex threw his hands up and shouted, “That’s what I said!”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Luke said, rolling his eyes.

Shaking her head, Julie looked the boys up and down again.

“Well, you three are definitely not going into the house like that,” Julie trailed off at the sound of barking.

The group turned in time to see Elvis sprinting across the driveway with Carlos chasing after him. The little dog came rushing towards them so fast mud and grass sprayed out from under his paws.

“Elvis, no!” Reggie shouted.

The puppy ignored him. Instead, Elvis started rolling around in the wet grass. Julie could already see mud clumping into his white fur.

“Someone grab him!” she yelled.

They all spread out to surround the puppy. Elvis had other plans and managed to dart between Luke’s legs.

“Carlos, why did you let him out?” Julie asked her brother.

“He was crying! I heard him all the way from the kitchen! I thought he had to use the restroom, and I didn’t think you would appreciate him going in the studio. He ran out as soon as I opened the door,” Carlos explained as he tried to steady his breathing.

 _For someone who plays sports, he’s really out of breath,_ Julie thought to herself.

Before she could remark on it, Alex shouted.

Julie turned out to see Alex falling as Elvis out from between his legs and racing towards the house. She remembered about the new doggy door her father had installed last week and froze. If Elvis made it inside the house, there would be mud everywhere and her dad would _kill her_.

She took a deep breath and channeled every ounce of her mother as she could before calling the dog.

“Elvis, come! Now.”

Her bandmates and Carlos all flinched at her “mom voice” and watched as the puppy immediately stopped running. Elvis trotted up to her and sat at her feet.

In Julie’s opinion, Elvis looked way too pleased with himself as he stared up at her with his tail wagging. His gray and white fur was covered in mud, and bits of grass stuck to his blue collar.

Sighing, she knelt to pick the dog up in her arms.

“Come on, it’s bath time for you,” she cooed at him before turning to her ghosts. “I think it’s bath time for you three, too.”

Carlos followed her gaze and finally noticed how wet and muddy the three ghosts were. Raising an eyebrow, the younger boy shrugged and walked back towards the house.

“Can you bring his puppy shampoo to the studio, please?” Julie called after her brother. Carlos raised a thumbs up in the air without turning around.

Julie focused back on the boys in front of her. They stared back at her.

She raised an eyebrow and nodded towards the studio. Sighing, the ghosts disappeared. Julie began walking after them as Elvis squirmed in her arms.

+

Carlos had met her at the studio doors with the bottle of puppy shampoo and a fluffy towel. With a thanks and kiss on the cheek, Julie sent her brother off to do his homework for the night.

Julie walked into the studio to see the three ghosts huddled over a huge towel by the restroom door. They all had towels in their hands as they wiped the mud and grass off their faces. They were still shirtless, so Julie quickly averted her eyes as she walked towards the restroom.

She ignored them and pushed the restroom door open. Julie had already settled Elvis in the shower and slipped her raincoat off by the time the guys had slipped into the restroom after her.

“It’s easier if someone sits in the shower with him so he doesn’t get too crazy. Who’s it going to be?” Julie turned to them with her arms crossed.

The three boys exchanged looks for a moment before Reggie was shoved forward.

She smiled sweetly as the bassist grumbled under his breath. Luke and Alex exchanged grins and watched as he climbed into the shower with the excited puppy.

When Julie and Carlos had first taken Elvis a bath, they were shocked to find out that the dog actually enjoyed baths. Their old neighbor had an annoying Chihuahua when they were kids, and she always told them how much her dog despised bath time. Elvis was a different story. As soon as he realized it was bath time, the little dog would always jump into the bathtub, wagging his tail so hard it thumbed against the shower walls.

“Alex, can you go get the blow dryer from the bathroom upstairs?” Julie asked the blonde. He nodded and poofed out.

“Why do you need a blow dryer?” Luke asked.

Julie reached around him to get the puppy shampoo off the counter before answering, “He gets cold after a bath.”

Even though Julie wasn’t looking at him, Luke smiled softly at the girl. “He gets cold, so you blow dry him?”

“Well, he does have about two-inch-thick fur. I mean, I get cold when my hair’s wet after I shower, so I can only imagine how cold it is when his whole body is wet. Heads up, Reg,” she warned her friend before turning the shower on.

Julie slid the showerhead out of its handle and brought it down to the puppy’s level.

Although the puppy enjoyed taking a bath, Elvis always managed to get everything and everyone else soaking wet during the process. By the time Julie had finished washing his fur clean, her shirt was soaking wet. Reggie had gotten dog fur and mud on his still drenched jeans. The only dry ones were Luke and Alex, who had been perched on the counter behind them.

Julie immediately appointed them to blow dry the dog while she went to grab another towel for herself and Reggie cleaned himself off. She considered going back to the house to get a new shirt but decided it wasn’t worth going back out into the rain once again. Instead, Julie found herself moving towards the trash bags in the corner where the boys kept their clothes.

She glanced towards the closed restroom door. The sound of the guys’ laughter and the shower turning on again echoed off the studio walls.

Julie began digging through the clothes and found a blue flannel. The thick material was soft and warm against her cold fingers. When she raised it to her nose for an experimental sniff, she was pleased to find it smelled clean. She loved the guys, but Julie couldn’t trust them not to stuff dirty clothes in with their clean ones.

She risked a glance at the restroom door again before quickly changing her wet shirt out for the warm flannel.

By the time the restroom door opened again, Julie was planted in front of her dad’s old portable heater. She had hung her wet shirt on the steps to the loft and left her rainboots by the studio door to dry.

Luke slipped out through the cracked open door. He glanced at Julie as he moved towards the trash bags and froze.

“Where did you get that?” he asked hesitantly.

Julie furrowed her brows. “Um, my shirt was soaked, and I didn’t feel like going back to the house to change. I took it out of one of ya’lls bags. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, um, it’s totally fine. It looks good on you,” he mumbled.

Before Julie could respond, Luke had snatched one of the bags up in his hands and hurried back into the restroom.

Julie blinked at his reaction and shook her head.

_Why are boys so weird?_

She had turned back to scrolling through her phone when the restroom door opened again. This time, a freshly dried Elvis came running out. Reggie followed after him looking clean again, while Alex stopped on the towel they had placed on the floor earlier and sat down.

“Luke’s going to shower real quick,” Alex explained when Julie sent them a confused look as the shower turned back on.

Reggie threw himself on the couch and wrapped himself up in the old quilt they kept on the armrest.

“Julieeeee,” Reggie whined. He batted his big brown eyes at her until she sighed.

She stood, wincing as her back popped, and moved to the couch. Reggie wiggled over so she could stretch out next to him.

As soon as she got comfortable, Reggie wrapped his body around her. Elvis stopped rolling on the rug to jump on Julie’s legs and nestle his small body against her calves.

Alex smiled at them.

“Hey, isn’t this Luke’s shirt?” Reggie said. He lifted his head from her shoulder to inspect the blue flannel she had put on.

“Is it? I didn’t feel like going to get a new shirt, so I just took one from one of the bags,” Julie shrugged.

She tried to appear nonchalant, but, in her head, she was screaming. Of course. Of course. It would be her luck to borrow a shirt from the guy she had a stupid crush on.

Almost as if he could hear her internal freak out, Alex raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, that explains a lot.”

Julie had opened her mouth to ask what he meant when the restroom door and Luke’s head peaked out.

“Hey, can you give me some clothes?” he asked Alex.

The blonde stood, muttering something about why he has to do everything, and began digging through the same trash bag Julie had looked through earlier. He gave Luke a handful of clothes with an order to “hurry his ass up” and pulling the door shut.

“Reggie, just so you know, I am never doing that again,” Alex told the other boy.

The bassist, who was currently pulling apart one of Julie’s curls, rolled his eyes.

“Why did you even think running around in the rain, half naked by the way, was a great idea?” Julie asked, nudging his shoulder.

“It was a good idea. Alex is just grumpy because he’s cold.”

“Yeah, I’m cold because somebody likes to take forever in the shower!” Alex turned to yell at the closed door behind him. Luke must have heard him because he banged against the wood in response.

Julie couldn’t help but laugh at her friends.

“I mean, it really is your fault,” Luke said as he finally came strolling out of the restroom. His brown hair was sticking up all over the place like he had stuck his finger in a socket.

Alex jumped up and shoved Luke out of the way. He had just closed the door when he opened the door once again to stomp over and snatch his bag of clothes up before slamming the door shut after him.

“Wait, who’s fault?” Reggie asked. He had finished dissecting her curls and had moved to fiddling with one of her bracelets.

“Julie’s,” Luke said, as if the answer was obvious.

Julie snapped her head to look at him. “How is it my fault you idiots thought running outside in that massive storm was a good idea?”

Luke moved to slide on top of the back of the couch and dropped on top of Reggie and Julie, successfully knocking the air out of both of them. Elvis, bless his heart, was still curled up at her feet and didn’t even react to Luke’s movements.

“Oh, that’s easy. You left us unsupervised.”

Julie couldn’t even formulate a response to that. Instead, she rolled her eyes at the cheeky grin on Luke’s face.

 _Idiots,_ she thought to herself, _I’m surrounded by idiots._


End file.
